There are a number of applications in which it is of interest to estimate or determine the direction a person is looking. The analysis of human communications, medical testing, occupational safety procedures, and automobile driver alertness are all examples of different applications in which determining gaze direction is of interest. To determine the direction a person is looking, a picture of the person's face is captured using high resolution video or still cameras. The picture is then processed with appearance-based feature recognition and tracking techniques. Appearance-based feature recognition and tracking techniques typically use complex processing algorithms to perform high spatial resolution analysis. Systems that detect gaze direction in this manner, however, are usually expensive to purchase, install, and maintain.